When the Heavens Went on Sale

The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach

By: Ashlee Vance

Narrated by: Ashlee Vance, Robert Petkoff

Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

A momentous look at the private companies building a revolutionary new economy in space, from the New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk

In When the Heavens Went on Sale, Ashlee Vance illuminates our future and unveils the next big technology story of our time: welcome to the Wild West of aerospace engineering and its unprecedented impact on our lives.

With the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket in 2008, Silicon Valley began to realize that the universe itself was open for business. Now, Vance tells the remarkable, unfolding story of this frenzied intergalactic land grab by following four pioneering companies—Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab—as they build new space systems and attempt to launch rockets and satellites into orbit by the thousands.

With the public fixated on the space tourism being driven by the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson, these new, scrappy companies arrived with a different set of goals: to make rocket and satellite launches fast and cheap, thereby opening Earth’s lower orbit for business. Vance has had a front-row seat and singular access to this peculiar and unprecedented moment in history, and he chronicles it all in full color: the top-secret launch locations, communes, gun-toting bodyguards, drugs, espionage investigations, and multimillionaires guzzling booze to dull the pain as their fortunes disappear.

Through immersive and intimate reporting, When the Heavens Went on Sale reveals the spectacular chaos of the new business of space, and what happens when the idealistic, ambitious minds of Silicon Valley turn their unbridled vision toward the limitless expanse of the stars. This is the tale of technology’s most pressing and controversial revolution, as told through fascinating characters chasing unimaginable stakes in the race to space.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Ashlee Vance (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Great

Really amazing book. Great background on many now well-known rocket startups, and some lesser-known.

Amazing story

This is an awesome story of journeys that the non-space x start ups have went through to create and build their space start ups.

It is amazing how Ashlee was able to shine a light on the realities of being a start up, working in the space industry, and re-creating a stagnant field.

All around amazing book. Highly recommend.

Superb

Ashley Vance did it again, awesome topic and stories well told. Looking forward to the next book.

Fascinating, highly recommend

Absolutely loved this book and didn't want it to end! A must for anyone with an interest in aerospace.

Great Background for the New Rocket Startups

Wow. What a book. I worked for Aerojet in the mid 80's. I wanted to help "America get back to space". But I was just another number in an aerospace prime already having its heydey during Apollo. Where was SpaceX when I needed them?! So in 1988 I followed my true passion, aircraft, and joined Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites company in Mojave CA. I eventually became the structural lead for SpaceShipOne which is currently in the Smithsonian. SpaceShipOne earned Burt Rutan the Collier Trophy. But around that time, we had many interesting visitors like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Dennis Tito and Elon Musk. Elon was trying to poach at least one star Scaled Composites employee for his new company: SpaceX. So over the years, I wasn't really following the new budding rocket companies very closely. I had heard of Rocket Lab, Firefly, Astra but knew nothing about them. Ashlee does an incredible job filling in all that missing background in one publication! Holy cow. What drama! What hard work. Insane. So impressive. I thought the flying car startups were crazy. Most won't survive. But the rocket companies are that X 10!

So Ashlee, I feel like you're one of us. You are my hero. I also loved your book on Elon. You obviously know Mojave, where I've worked and lived since 1988. When are you going to write a book on "flying cars"? Or perhaps on "roadable airplanes"? ....which is a totally different type of vehicle.

Thank you for a superb job! The best is yet to come in the rocket industry!!

Dan Kreigh

So Much Information

I really had no expectations before reading this, but it was just excellent. Vance covers SpaceX, but this is more a book about all the other lesser known entrepreneurs. I learned a lot from this book.

The narration is really excellent. If I had one quibble, it's that Vance does lapse into a few moments of rhetorical excess.

Really ineresting, whether you are a space junkie or not.

Interesting and informative

Liked how he weaved the different stories together. This one focused on rockets, but there is a whole lot else going on in the space business

Inside glimpse of how space sausage is made

As a 40 year veteran of "tech" ventures, I found myself nodding on almost every page, thinking "yep, that sounds about right". This book is a refreshingly raw view of how messy and expensive it is to develop new technologies into reliable products.

The longer form Hello World we’ve all needed

Excellent read/listen. I loved the diverse set of characters and places that Ashlee got to meet and visit. I also appreciated that he was more comfortable putting himself in the story this time because I’ve always liked his techy Bourdain take more than simply hearing a second order history of a person or company. The only thing preventing this from being 6/5 stars (besides Audible’s code) is I wish Ashlee would have read the book. The reader did a fantastic job, but just like live bands, the beauty really comes from playing with the imperfections.

Fantastic book

This will read like a historical document one day, and it’s so crazy to read this as things are playing out.